Destiny Fate True Love All That Trash
by Penthesilea2
Summary: One angst prince of Kuat.  Two very ordinary teenage Jedi. Three powerhungry villains.  Mix well with pigheadedness and sarcasm to make one recipe for disaster.
1. Form One

**AN: **I seem to have lost my old FF account, but oh well, maybe some of you around here will recognize the name anyway. My other fanfics have included "Between Pirates and Princesses" and "Blood is Thicker Than…"

This story is all my sister's fault. I was complaining about the overly dramatic nature of fanfiction titles and said if I wrote an epic story I would mock everyone and call it "Destiny, Fate, True Love – All That Trash."

And somehow, I ended up writing such a story. Argh. Anyway, here it is. YJK-era-goodness.

**EDIT: **Hey guys, just replaced some things in this chapter, some of them vaguely important for the plot, so I hope you'll skim or something just to see. Thanks so much!

**Destiny. Fate. True Love. All That Trash.**

**des·ti·ny** [des-tuh-nee –noun, plural -nies.

1. something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune. 2. the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. 3. the power or agency that determines the course of events.

**fate** [feyt - noun, verb, fat·ed, fat·ing. –noun

1. something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot: It is always his fate to be left behind. 2. the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause of events; time: Fate decreed that they would never meet again. 3. that which is inevitably predetermined; destiny: Death is our ineluctable fate. 4.a prophetic declaration of what must be: The oracle pronounced their fate. 5. death, destruction, or ruin.

**love** [luhv noun, verb, loved, lov·ing. –noun

1. a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. 2. a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend. 3. sexual passion or desire. 4. a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

**trash ** [trash –noun

1. anything worthless, useless, or discarded; rubbish. 2. foolish or pointless ideas, talk, or writing; nonsense. 3. a worthless or disreputable person. 4. such persons collectively. 5. literary or artistic material of poor or inferior quality.

**Form I: Shii-Cho, The Determination Form**

"_Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."_

- William Jennings Bryan (1860 - 1925)

Rachel Taren did not believe in fate.

She believed in supreme annoyance of younger siblings. And possibly the law that anything bad that can happen, will happen. She was a living testament to that law, and she dealt with it by heavy doses of sarcasm.

The sarcasm was occasionally grating on Aimee's nerves.

Like now, for instance, as they were lifting off from the Anteluma Space Authority on Commenor, about to begin their journey to Yavin IV.

"And quite possibly, the airlock will breach, and then it will vent atmosphere and the pressure will drop and then the last thing you'll see will be _my_ face. But your blood will be boiling or freezing or something, so it won't matter much. It's been nice knowing you Aimee."

She was also a bit pessimistic.

"Shut up, Rachel," Aimee muttered under her breath.

She gripped the seat restraints harder, her knuckles whitening, as the ship cleared the atmosphere and rocketed towards the hyperspace jump point.

"Sorry," Rachel murmured, "I think that's all a myth anyway. Exposure to space for a minute shouldn't cause any permanent damage to the human body. Unless you plug ears, or if hold your breath, because your circulatory system just isn't designed for that. And eventually your body will run out of oxygen…"

"Rachel. Shut. Up. _Now._"

"If you insist."

"Wipe that stupid smirk off your face."

Rachel grinned widely.

Free to concentrate on her fear now, Aimee sat back and stared broodingly out the viewport. The Commenor shipyards were visible through the transparisteel, a myriad of ships and stations and massive cranes, all busily absorbed in their tasks.

"Deep breaths, Aimee."

"What did I say about shutting up?" she hissed through clenched teeth.

The ship rocked a bit as it cleared the energy shield surrounding the shipyard and the turbulence made Aimee sincerely wish that she had not eaten breakfast that morning. Once they were through, the ship drifted for only a second or two before the stars around them elongated into hyperspace lines and they were surrounded by a shifting vortex of white and purple light.

The pilot of the vessel, an aging cargo hauler named Raisler, turned around to give them a reassuring grin. Or at least it was supposed to be reassuring, but Aimee didn't find much about the whole situation to soothe her.

"Not bad for someone's who's only been on a spaceship three times in her life," Rachel said with a note of concern in her voice that hadn't been there before. Rachel knew when she'd crossed a line and it was lucky for her at that moment that she hadn't crossed all of the extra boundaries Aimee allowed.

The familiar tendency of Rachel to infuriate her was partly what kept Aimee from completely despairing. Her older sister could be a jerk, but she was still her older sister. And there wasn't going to be any familiar faces where they were going.

She studied the patterns of hyperspace from the tiny viewport, shifting in her seat so that she could look without appearing to be looking too hard. Of course, there wasn't a pattern out there, not really. The best way she could think to describe it was chaos and she shivered at her revelation. There were people that trekked across the galaxy continually to make their living, or for adventure or perhaps duty, and some spent more time in hyperspace than out, but Aimee didn't think she could do it. All that nothingness scared her.

She felt a hand on her arm and looked to see her sister gazing meaningfully at her.

"Statistically, this is a very safe way to travel," Aimee stated flippantly.

Rachel smirked. "Statistically, there isn't really another way _to_ travel."

Aimee sighed and looked at her knees. "Do you really think this is a good idea?"

Rachel thought about it before answering. That was the thing about Rachel she appreciated, the thing that caused Aimee to turn to her sister before someone more authoritative, or just more agreeable. Rachel told the truth. She didn't sugar-coat things, or spout empty reassurances. She thought about it and she told you her honest opinion. It was why Aimee trusted her.

"I'm actually quite torn up about it," Rachel said after a moment, "My general outlook on life has not always been positive. Circumstances willing though, I'm sure it would be better."

Aimee winced. Rachel found trouble wherever it lurked. That was simply the way she was.

"On the other hand, maybe I've just been in the wrong place. Maybe I'm finally doing what I'm supposed to be doing." She cringed. "Make me stop now, Aimee. Giving control of your life over to higher powers is the first sign of stupidity."

Aimee laughed, but the sound tapered off quickly. "I think, if anything, this will give us more control. The ability to shove it in Fate's ugly face. Why should you give credit to higher powers?"

Rachel grinned. "When did you get so smart?" She paused and gave a small half-smile. "Wait, don't tell me, I like the mystery."

"You don't want to have this potentially meaningful and foreboding conversation? As we begin our journey?" Aimee pouted.

"Nah. I need to sleep."

"You're going to sleep? At a time like this?"

"What better time? I doubt I'll get much of it for the next while if I have to share a room with you."

Aimee crinkled in her nose in confusion. "What does that have to do with it?"

"You snore. Loudly."

Aimee punched her shoulder. "Do not!"

"Uh-huh. Wake me if we start leaking atmo…"

X

* * *

X

Eluding assassination attempts was like a full-time job for Terjé Leshka. Or maybe an extreme sport, because Terje abhorred work of any kind, and this was a reckless kind of fun. It was just a good thing, he considered as he blockaded the door to his room with a large statue of one of his predecessors, that he was undefeated thus far.

The mistake they always made, he thought as he dug through his pants pocket for the appropriate escape devices, was assuming that he was your average spoiled palace brat. Which, he noted to himself as he ran a hand through well-conditioned blonde hair, he sort of was.

The self-realization brought a momentary insouciant smile to his face, which quickly vanished as the sound of a heavy-repeating blaster cannon thundered against the durasteel enforced doors. Deciding he'd contemplated his various perfections enough for the time being, he moved swiftly towards the window.

As he suspected, the group of assassins had not found this exit worthy of covering, considering the large moat below it. Or perhaps there was only one assassin, in which case he was honour-bound to live. Such techniques were sloppy and he could not have the rest of the galaxy remembering him solely as the prince of Kuat who couldn't even handle one incompetent minion.

Of course, they would probably say something about his looks in the obituary as well.

He secured the grappling hook on the window sill and gripped the fibrecord tightly before climbing out. After one last quick glance below him, he began to rappel down the stone face of the tower.

He dropped into the water as he reached the bottom, but what assassins missed was the fact that there was a compartment just under the surface without a top. Terjé felt claustrophobic for a moment as he was surrounded on all four sides, like an upright coffin filled with water, but then he found the controls for the doors and it opened easily, revealing a carefully hewn tunnel. The water in the compartment emptied into the tunnel, but as soon as he closed the door, he knew it would start filling up again.

Shaking excess water from his hair, he set off down the tunnel, heading for the secret exit in the forest, where a speeder bike and some supplies were hidden.

Questions itched at him as his bare feet slapped the duracrete floor, taking his mind of the horrible knowledge that he would soon have _calluses_ on his feet.

For the first, how did the assassin know he was here? His father knew, and the people here knew, but there was no communication array, and the servants were usually so loyal.

For the second, the one that he tried harder to disregard, was: how many did that make so far this year? Did they know what his father was planning? Did they suspect? Or was it purely coincidental that the number of attempts on his life had increased drastically in recent months?

Terjé frowned as he ran further into the night.

Things were getting out of hand.

X

* * *

X

She walked steadily down the incline of the old space freighter's boarding ramp, her dark eyes rapidly scanning the surroundings as she tried to absorb every detail. Mist curled around her feet and breezes from the momentary atmospheric turbulence ruffled her hair as she stepped carefully off the incline. Above the far-away tips of the towering trees she could see the clouds were heavy with unshed rain.

She reached the bottom of the ramp, still examining her surroundings closely, taking in the details of this strange new environment.

The day was, in her opinion, ominously overcast. Even the air seemed foreboding, though at the same time humid and vibrant. Her surroundings were rich with the perpetually green growth of a thousand different varieties of plants and the sounds of millions of birds, reptiles, insects and mammals.

_So this is Yavin IV,_ she thought warily to herself, looking around somewhat apprehensively. She'd never been in a rainforest, or really, a forest of any kind, and it seemed a reminder of all the things she was about to do that she had never done before.

Raisler clunked down the ramp behind her and stood looking out at the scene for a moment.

"It's impressive, isn't it?" he said roughly.

"It's… moist," Rachel answered, thinking impressive was usually a word with positive connotations and thus not applicable.

He grinned broadly before turning back up into the ship, adding as he went, "Well, anyway, I'll see about unloading your stuff."

Rachel stayed where she was, feeling her heart running a bit faster than normal.

_What am I getting myself into?_

Trouble of a higher than usual grade, perhaps?

Her eyes were drawn away from the jungle to the massive Massaisai temple and a tall broad-shouldered man, dressed in a long black robe with gray hair walking casually towards them. She noted the strong posture, straight-backed and chin up, and tried to guess at what kind of life this man had seen. There was a mixture of defeat and of persistence in his demeanor she found intriguing. He was walking in her direction, down the wide terraced steps overgrown with vines to the landing pad where she stood.

She heard a sharp clang of metal as her younger sister exited, smiling as she jogged down the boarding ramp to stand beside her sister, watching the man approach.

"So, are you nervous?" Aimee asked quietly without facing her.

Rachel shrugged, putting a hand on her hip. "I'm never nervous. Only appropriately cautious."

"I think they're the same thing, Rachel."

"I think you're cruelly disregarding the fact that I declined to admit I'm nervous."

"I think you just admitted that inadvertently anyways."

"I think you suck."

Aimee seemed about to reply, but the man in black robes was getting closer and she seemed to want to keep away doubts about her maturity for the time being.

She focused her gaze on the huge man in Jedi Master's robes as he came to stand in front of them. He smiled and held out a hand for them to shake, which they did.

"Rachel and Aimee Taren?" he questioned, and when they nodded, "Kam Solusar. I'm very pleased to have you here."

"Thank-you," Rachel said, trying to smile politely but not succeeding fully. Her smile had two modes: amused smirk and self-deprecating smirk. Very occasionally, it would venture into what could be called genuine.

This attitude did not go unmissed by Kam Solusar, but whatever he thought, he kept it to himself and returned with an even more sincere smile.

"I'm afraid things are somewhat _chaotic_ here lately. Your appointed master has not yet arrived, though I assure you she is anxious to meet you."

He gave a funny look then, something Rachel wondered later if she'd seen or_seen_, in that way that she was prone to seeing. She thought it may have been imagined, but convincing herself was hard.

"Was she delayed?" Aimee asked.

"We think so, but since we haven't had any word, it's hard to know." He smiled again as they began walking towards the Temple, the girls falling behind a bit because of the luggage bags slung over their shoulders. "But it will give you a few days to settle in. I'll show you where your rooms are, but the rest is really up to you."

_When Tionne talked to Mom and Dad about fostering independence I guess she really meant it,_ Rachel mused.

She had to admit she was disappointed in some ways. Not that she expected Luke Skywalker himself to walk up and introduce himself to her, but she had hoped to see _her_ Jedi Master when she arrived, considering how importance their relationship was supposed to be. And what happened to having regular classes? Did the Jedi just not do these things?

The last one bothered her the most, she realized. Rachel Taren liked to learn, even if it was a topic she had no familiarity with; variety was the spice of life. Or maybe seeking out evil in the galaxy, wherever it may lurk, was supposed to be the spice of life. Or perhaps, she suspected, she was just hungry.

She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and fell into step with Aimee behind Master Solusar. The Jedi Temple, though it may look like a crumbling and decrepit ruin, was actually… well, a crumbling and decrepit ruin. But that said it had a _history_ and Rachel got the academic shivers just thinking about it. She ran her hand along the cool stone as they walked through the corridors, taking in the damp jungle smell and hearing the sound of moisture collecting in rain wells.

It seemed to her that the feel of the solidity and permanence of the ancient stone evoked the ghosts of long past, that the temple's memories briefly touched her mind, and she saw images of the people that had inhabited it, in times of war and conflict, in times of peace. The oldest images were the faintest, but there were more recent flashes of a boy about her age looking as though he'd been raiding Darth Vader's closet for choice in attire, his long black hair pulled back and fighting a brandy-eyed brunette girl. There was a vision of an explosion ripping through part of the temple, the fire and smoke consuming…

Rachel snatched her hand away, intimidated by the rush of memories. Things where she came from did not speak the way things here did, they simply weren't old enough or distinct enough.

She kept her arms crossed over her chest as they continued to walk and Aimee gave her a funny look, as though to say, "Sulking already?" which Rachel thought was greatly unfair. Rachel Taren did not sulk. She went off in a dignified strop.

The silent maze of corridors and stairs finally revealed a long hallway that brimmed with life and noise. Kam Solusar pushed the controls for the door with a sign above it that said, "Dormitories" and the portal swished aside to admit them.

It was like walking into a five-ring circus.

Rachel and Aimee blinked as they looked ahead of them. The corridor was wide, with a very high ceiling that had openings where sunlight would have poured in had the day not been so overcast. In the corridor, people of all size and species were apparent. Some leaned against the stone wall, deep in conversation, others were seated on some mats near the end of the hall, practicing levitating their fellow students. Some clustered around a table, watching two other students play dejarik. Some of the youngest students were involved in chasing each other around the room among their older peers, earning dirty glares from those obviously involved in meditation.

From one of the rooms nearby a scream issued, "Raynar Thul!! If you've clogged this shower drain again with your hair I will KILL you!"

"Well," said Kam Solusar, suddenly looking anxious to go, "Your rooms are at the end on the left… Glad to have met you, must be getting back to things…"

And with that he turned to make a swift exit.

Aimee looked at Rachel and Rachel looked at Aimee, a brief look of helplessness passing across their faces. The sight of it on Aimee's face though, made Rachel draw herself up to her full height and lift her chin slightly higher. She adjusted the strap of her shoulder bag and gently touched the elbow her younger sister.

"Come on 'Mee," she declared, "Let's go."

She left the smiling and the friendly overtures to Aimee, and let her customary look of vaguely bemused apathy show on her features. She figured it was better than her bored and pissed off variety of apathetic looks.

The other students did not pay them a great deal of attention, except for the occasional few that weren't absorbed completely in their activities and gave them a smile or nod. The room at the end of the hall was an advantage, Rachel thought as they entered, because it had two windows, one on each outside wall, instead of the single one that most students would have. There were two beds, pushed against opposite walls, with a small shelf beside each. A chest of drawers occupied the wall with the door, but the room was otherwise empty.

"A little bare," Aimee commented, stepping in and slowly turning around in a circle to examine it.

"Right," Rachel replied, then dove towards the bed in the corner beneath the window. No way in the Corellian hells was she giving it up to her younger sister. Unless it made her _really_ sad.

Aimee glared at her, but seemed content to drop her bag on the other bed and sit on the edge for a moment in contemplation, staring off into space. Having settled her claim, Rachel meandered over to the window.

"Hey," she noted, "A room with a view."

Aimee joined her to admire the sight. The jungle of Yavin IV stretched out thick and wild beneath them, while in the distance, a range of dark grey mountains jutted out of the forest floor. The sun was just touching their points, turning the edges a dull purple.

The sound of Aimee's stomach rumbling interrupted their admiration.

"You hear that?" Rachel queried sharply, "That is definitely stomach talk for 'Find the mess hall, you fools.'"

With dubious glances towards the door, they braced themselves for the search.

X

* * *

X

"Hey?"

Kaminoan sprouts. Why'd it have to be Kaminoan sprouts?

Kriff, Aimee didn't even like sprouts while she lived on Commenor. Why should she start eating them now?

The food had been sitting there on her plate, staring at her in all its green, glistening, slimy splendor, daring her to take one tiny little bite. But next to the bloody, raw, Kashyyykian slab of meat that had been slopped on the plate next to it, the sprouts didn't look half-bad. And the Genosian cooks hadn't even bothered to give her some semblance of pasta, though she shuddered to think of how that might have turned out. No, when it came to food, she preferred it dead to anything else. Aimee didn't want to be worrying about supper running off her plate while she chased after it with a knife.

"Hey."

At least, she thought, the food couldn't get any worse than this. Or could it? She had caught a whiff of the Kashyyykian liquor that the Wookies had been chugging down… It almost made her feel light-headed. Was it possible their wine had gone rancid, or was she just imagining things?

"Dead food…" she muttered to herself, stabbing at the sprouts with her fork, listlessly lifting them high into the air as though to drop them in her mouth, but only eyeing the sorry excuse for a meal beadily with one bright black eye.

Suddenly, however, the smell of _real pasta _drifted past her nostrils, and her eyes widened.

"Hey!"

Aimee glanced up briefly, but, seeing no one, she glanced back down at her unappetizing appetizer. Yum.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and looked up to see a teenage boy about her age standing behind her.

As he stood and hovered beside her, a comical, bemused smirk lingered on his face.

"Hey good-lookin'," he said boldly, with a strong Corellian accent and a hint of something else. "All the other tables are full, mind if I sit down?"

Aimee said nothing, only half-stood to peer over the hundreds of heads, both alien and human, to see several empty tables in the cafeteria. She turned her head to regard him, raising a sceptical brow.

He flashed her a grin. "Okay, so not quite full, but the company looks better over here."

Aimee sighed. "Have a seat."

The mysterious boy slipped in beside her and with bravado slammed his tray down on the table in front of him. For a moment, her mouth dropped open and she goggled at the contents of his tray.

"Is that… Corellian pasta?" she ventured hesitantly.

"Yup," he said, smiling again.

She blinked furiously, and then put her face in her hands as a measure of frustration at her awful day so far. It seemed like the last straw, someone else ending up having her favorite food, and her, not knowing where to stop and where to go in the lunch line, ending up with some slop.

The boy who had raised his fork in preparation to dig in, starving after a rigorous training with swordsticks, seemed to notice the girl's expression of exasperation.

"You want some?" The words sprang forth from his mouth, far too hasty and loud.

"What?" she said irritably, lifting her face from her hands.

He smiled yet again, though this one seemed a bit forced. "I said, do you want some?"

"I don't," she answered immediately, "I'll stick with what I've got, thanks." She made to eat the sprouts that were falling off her fork, hearing him say with amusement, "…All right then, suit yourself."

She tried to raise the fork to her mouth, but she couldn't bring herself to actually stick the overwhelming smelly mass of vegetables into her mouth. She tried again and squeezed her eyes shut with queasy apprehension. She was to be sick, she was sure of it.

The sound of his chuckling made her open one eye. She put down the fork.

"Find something funny, do you?" she questioned with narrowed eyes.

He gave an exaggerated sigh and pushed his tray so that the plate of pasta was between them.

Aimee looked at the plate in shock, then up at his smirking face.

"You're sharing?" she said incredulously.

"It would appear that way," he shot back with a roll of his eyes.

Taking stab at the steaming hot noodles, she smiled for what had to be the first time this evening.

"Man," she said, "thank you so much. I've had such a long day, you have no idea…"

"I wouldn't say that," he said, "I bet I've had longer. You new here?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding, "yeah, I'm new here. I'm from Commenor."

"I'm from… around," he replied. "And you are?"

"Aimee Taren," she answered, "What's your name?"

"I'm Jexxen Midanyl," he said, and added slyly with a wink, "Jex for short." He took another bite of pasta and glanced, briefly at her.

"Jex…" she said, smiling lightly, "Jex. Great to meet you."

"Pleasure, Aimee," he said in reply.

Any other words he might have said were cut off by Rachel's arrival on the scene.

"Shove over, Aimee," Rachel said good-naturedly, sliding smoothly in beside her. Aimee noted with some despair that _she_ had managed to get into the right line, as her food was grilled Ithorian vegetables and some grain product from Agamar.

"Hey," she said, looking suspiciously at Jex, "Who's this?"

Aimee contained an urged to sigh exasperatedly and roll her eyes.

"Rachel, Jex. Jex, Rachel," she said, gesturing respectively.

"Nice to meet you," Rachel greeted.

"Likewise," Jex grinned.

He turned to Aimee with a mischievous smile, "And now that we've gotten that out of the way, there's only one thing to do."

Aimee gazed back at him quizzically, "What's that?"

He stood up from the table, "Race you for more pasta."

Laughing, she took off after him down the aisle.

X

* * *

X

It was early morning in Kuat City, with the early morning sun beginning to trickle through the groves of tropical nanglo trees and through the decadent velette curtains in the magnificent and luxurious rooms of Kuat Palace. The gentle yellow beams fell across the head of a tall, lanky teenage boy who was standing stiffly in such a room. As is common with teenage boys, he had grown faster than his frame could fill out, making him look lean, yet adolescent. His face had what some might call "chiselled" cheekbones and an aristocratic chin. The sun shone golden on the shaggy mass of curled blond hair that topped his head and highlighted his tanned brown skin. His eyes were a strange hazel, eyes that were at once cynical, humorous, and carefree in combination. Terjé Leshka made a pretty credit for the holotabloids.

Rikard Leshka, the Kuat of Kuat, paced uneasily back and forth across the floor of his bedchamber, his hand stroking his chin thoughtfully and his eyes clouded with a distant look.

"This is too much, I won't take the risk anymore," he stated solemnly.

Terjé, standing wearily a few feet away with shadowed eyes from lack of sleep and bruises on his feet from running barefoot through the woods, felt his heart sink and worked hard to keep his face impassive. He had a feeling he knew what was coming.

"I will send for Jedi as body guards," his father decided, stopping his pacing to face Terjé.

Terjé's mouth dropped open and his fists clenched in sudden outrage.

"Father, no! That's embarrassing!" he protested, and inwardly thought, _And it's a clear sign of weakness to my scheming cousins…_

His father raised an eyebrow and looked at him sternly. "What did you expect me to do?"

Terjé's hands gestured violently and he spoke, "A vacation on some other planet, well-thought out disguise, something, anything, besides being babysat by a bunch of ineffectual spoon-benders!"

Rikard gave his son and even sterner look, and replied firmly, "If there are any more attempts made this month, I'm calling the Academy. You're only sixteen years old, you can't handle this kind of thing so frequently."

Terjé rolled his eyes and sighed in exasperation before turning his back on his father.

"A prince of Kuat doesn't need _anyone_!" he declared before striding towards the door, "Something _you_ seem to have forgotten."

The door swished shut before the Kuat could reply.

As he walked in the direction of the royal chambers, he raged to himself. The Jedi! What was his father thinking? There were plenty of perfectly able bodyguards to fill the position of protecting him.

More over, he could look after himself, as he'd been doing for as long as he could remember. His mother had died when he was three, and his father had grown steadily more overprotective since then. Surely he must realize that assassination attempts were an ordinary occurrence in this position? Terjé wasn't quite sure anymore, it seemed his father was becoming ever more eccentric as the years went by. Though he was still able to efficiently run the government and the Kuat Drive Yards, the largest manufacturers of capital ships in the galaxy, his personal life was shot to hell. Dating Viqi Shesh was having weird side-effects on him.

Terjé couldn't understand, and, he admitted to himself, he didn't want to. He had his own ideas for the direction his life would take and it wasn't the leader of a planet or anything involved with politics.

With an irritated shake of his head, Terjé headed to his room to catch up on some lost sleep.

**AN**: Soooo, that would be the first part of the first part. Heh. Hope you enjoyed.


	2. Form One Continuation

**AN: Hello guys! I realized I forgot some things on the last chapter, so there's been some revisions, but nothing too major. Thanks for the review and to other for adding me to their favourite stories/authors/etc! The following is a continuation of Form I, and soon we'll have Form II up, I think!**

_Ah,_ thought Rachel, _the sweet smell of library in the morning._

She allowed a genuine smile to shape her lips, knowing there was no one there to see it.

There were fewer non-electronic libraries in the galaxy than there had once been, since Palpatine had continued in the fine tradition of immoral, reprehensible tyrants and razed the contents of various academic centers. The Jedi Academy did not have an overly large library, but it had the beginnings of a collection the new Jedi order had worked hard to find.

Rachel walked between the shelves, revelling in presence of the ancient lore and let her fingers trace the edge of a flimsi scroll. Suddenly, she was looking into the eyes of a wizened old man, his lips moving as his eyes scanned back and forth, then the image dissipated and reformed with the cold black eyes of a red-haired woman gazing spitefully down.

Rachel snatched her hand away as though she had been burned, staring at the scroll. She looked at her hand, then back to the shelf, trying to determine what had caused the invasion of her mind.

"Hello?" a soft, musical voice called.

Rachel turned around to see a tall, silver-haired woman gazing at her from the end of the aisle. Her eyes seemed to brim over with compassion and expectation, her mouth quirked up in a friendly smile.

Rachel needed the space of one blink to collect herself.

"I'm a new student," she explained, "I just wanted to know how to use the library systems while I still have some time. Supposedly my master will be keeping me quite busy when she gets here."

The woman's mouth lost its smile for a millisecond, but it was brighter when it returned.

"Certainly," she said, "My name is Tionne, and I'm the archivist, librarian, bard, or whatever you would like to call it, for the Jedi. Let me show you how our library catalogue is organized."

The words "how our library catalogue is organized" gave Rachel a thrill she was quite sure would be judged inappropriate by a normal person.

She liked Tionne immediately because she was quiet and equally reverent about books. Rachel wasn't in the mood for saying much, and she was afraid she would be distracted by her earlier encounter with the scroll, but she found it quite easy to listen to the gentle voice of the Jedi historian and simply nodded in the appropriate places. Tionne left Rachel sitting at a cubicle, pouring over a recent volume called _The Rise and Fall of the Jedi_ that Tionne thought offered a good background.

She settled into an oversized chair near the back, holding the volume in her lap with great care, turning the crisp white pages. She skimmed the contents, ran a finger over the index, and selected a page at random.

It was near the end of the book, a section that covered some of the exploits of the more famous Jedi Masters during the Clone Wars. Rachel was curious, suddenly, and flipped to the copyright date. She did some mental calculations and decided if she knew her history right, the book must have been written virtually at the beginning of the last major fall of the Jedi.

It was fascinating in a way, she decided, that books were such a portal to the past. She hadn't lived in those times, but the intentions that the author enthused and engrained into the book clearly told of a time when the attitude towards Jedi was similar to Rachel's attitude toward vrelts. Worse, actually. Rachel thought vrelts could be kind of cute on occasion.

She heard light footsteps near the entrance to the library, detectable because of the echoes the ancient temple enhanced, and perked her eyes as she heard the newcomer talk to Tionne.

"Mara said I'd be better off looking at something down here than asking another Master about it, but I have no idea what I'm looking for. I've never heard of Jar'Kai before, have you Tionne?"

"By vague and poetical description, mostly. I don't stray too much into the combat technique expositions. But you're welcome to look over anything in the lightsaber combat section."

Rachel heard the two people coming towards her, and decided if her privacy was going to be interrupted, she might as well choose who it was interrupted by. There were some things she thought Aimee ought to know, and she needed to talk to someone about these funny glimpses she kept having.

The student and Tionne were still talking, but the voices trailed off as they found what they were looking for and Tionne doubled back. Rachel thought she had avoided the student entirely until she turned around the corner of a shelf and nearly ran into a short, brunette girl with large café coloured eyes.

Rachel blinked for a moment, almost dropping her treasured book. The girl gave her a puzzled look.

"You!" Rachel exclaimed, startled, "You're the girl from the temple's memories!"

She instantly regretted her words. She knew she sounded like a lunatic, and by the skeptical, assessing look the girl was giving her, she did too.

"I'm sorry, what do you mean? The temple's memories?" The girl's dark brown eyes were fixed on Rachel's face.

Taking a deep breath, and struggling to regain her customary nonchalance, Rachel smiled and said, "Sorry, it's nothing, really. Just that when I first got here, I had a brief… vision, and I saw you. Only for a moment, and you were fighting with a boy."

The skepticism in the girl's eyes faded to some extent. "This boy," she asked, "Did he have long, dark hair? And wear a black cloak?"

Rachel nodded once, narrowing her eyes. "Yes, that's it precisely."

"Well, I can't imagine why the Force would want to grant you a vision of the _past_ instead of the future, but I can vouch for the truth of it. That happened a while ago, maybe a year back, when we had some trouble with Dark Jedi. I had to fight my friend, Zekk, but he's better now. You may even see him around."

"I understand," Rachel said, feigning as though that cleared something up, though mostly it just put things in perspective. She had known that the glimpses she saw were the past, because it only seemed to happen with very old things, but she hadn't known quite when the events had taken place. Of course, the visions could be random each time.

"I apologize," Rachel expressed with a characteristic self-deprecating smirk and shake of the head, "I was just surprised to see you in person. I'm Rachel Taren."

"I'm Jaina Solo," the girl said, proffering a hand with Rachel accepted and shook, "How long have you been a student here?"

Rachel made a show of looking at her chrono. "About sixteen standard hours."

Jaina laughed. "Welcome then."

As friendly as Jaina seemed, and even inclined to talk, Rachel felt the pressing need to be away and talk to her sister. "Thanks. Good luck with your research."

The corner of her mouth rose infinitesimally.

Jaina grinned and turned back to the shelf, while Rachel hugged the book to her chest and puzzled her way through the temple back to the student dorms. She only took a wrong turn once, in spite of which she wrote the passage off as a total success.

The main hallway in the dorms was as chaotic as the day before, and Rachel wondered if things were ever really sane around the place. She dodged a heavy bantha-skin ball filled with sand that some people were performing strength training with (good grief, wasn't there a gym for these purposes?), a large rock (meditation was the spice of life, apparently), and a viciously growling stintaril (what _idiot_ let that creature in?) before she reached the safety of her room. She ducked in the entrance and leaned against the wall, feeling as though she'd just run through a war zone.

"How was the library?" Aimee said from the bed. She was typing furiously on a data-pad and did not look up, but Rachel thought her stress must be communicated so clearly as to defy the usually employed senses and start bombarding Aimee's psychic boundaries.

"I feel as though I have wandered into a nest of Grade-A crazies," Rachel said waspishly as she sat on the edge of her bed. "Nearly impaled by flying objects at every turn. Met the crazy daughter of the Chief of State in the library. Her friend tried to kill her, but now they're all cool? Having the memories of ancient artifacts invade my brain. Why did I leave Commenor?"

She flopped back on the bed, staring at the stone ceiling as though imploring it for answers.

Aimee stretched and pushed her datapad aside. "You didn't find anything redeemable about the whole situation?" Her dark eyes, nearly identical to Rachel's, regarded her sister with amusement.

Rachel raised her head a bit.

"The librarian seemed nice," she conceded.

Rachel saw her younger sister attempt to hide a smile, and added it to the list of wrongs she would one day tally up and wreck horrible vengeance with.

"What have you been up to?" Rachel asked curiously.

"Writing some letters home. One to Sorka, because I promised I would as soon as I got here, and one to Mum, because if worry was a currency, we'd be princesses."

"I think a few of those go here," Rachel mused, "Maybe they bestow titles on their friends. We should look into it."

Sorka was the youngest sister, a mere thirteen years of age, who had declined to attend the Academy with her older sisters. Not for lack of Force-sensitivity, "just because" she wasn't ready, or so she said. Perhaps she saw that it wasn't time for her. Sorka was good at seeing things like that.

Rachel was still watching the ceiling with interest, as though it displayed a scene of epic entertainment, when she felt the glare of her younger sister on her.

"What?" Rachel said, allowing indignation to colour her voice liberally, "What are you glaring at me like that for?"

"I put away my letters so that I could talk to you about your obvious problems, fuzz-for-brains," Aimee said with exasperation.

"Oh. Right," Rachel replied with a sharp nod, "My obvious problems."

Aimee muttered something with the words "evident", "lack", and "cognitive function" in it.

Rachel added another mark to her mental list.

"I keep seeing glimpses," she continued when the imaginary and imminent justice was in accord, "And there are three things they have in common. First, they're always in the past, as far as I can tell. Secondly, they only happen when I touch an object. And thirdly, they're kriffing annoying."

Aimee raised one eyebrow. "How scientific and logical, oh Wise One."

"I've only had two, so I don't have a lot to go on."

"You're the information junkie, so you'd have to do some reading," Aimee said carefully, "But it sounds like some kind of Force power."

Rachel groaned. "I just wanted to move rocks like the other kids."

"We can't all be normal, Rachel," Aimee said with a note of sadness, "And with your face, it's a lost cause."

This was too much to wait for future justice, so a brief tackle fight ensued before Rachel straightened and brushed herself off.

"I think they're memories," Rachel announced decidedly, "Except I just never thought of inanimate objects having memories."

"Let's take a walk," Aimee suggested, "We have nothing better to do until this Master Jedi arrives."

"Yes," Rachel agreed, and said, "To the library!" at the same time Aimee said, "To the jungle!"

They looked at each other with pitying expressions.

"Fine," granted Rachel with a sigh, "Let's go play in the big, pretty garden."

X

* * *

X

State dinners were tiresome, snippety, loathsome affairs, forcing a horrifying amount of contact with the plebian ministers and requiring just the correct amount of placating and subjugation.

In comparison to family dinners, however, Terjé thought state affairs looked like a veritable picnic. Though he held the general public in low regard, he preferred the much more garden-variety duplicity of his ministers to the creative (and often fatal) conniving of his aunts, uncles and cousins.

Furthermore, what was his father _thinking_ place him next to Aunt Iridra? She was as crazy as a mynock and frighteningly similar in odour.

Terje seethed for a moment, but his attention was drawn back to the conversation to his left. On the opposite side of his effluent smelling aunt was his cousin Elrik, who while he had the annoying habit of chewing with his mouth open, had the infuriating qualities of being genuine, good-looking, and a brilliant politician.

Terje considered him for a moment, watching the exchange between Elrik and an uncle whose hearing had rapidly atrophied in recent years. He scowled, watching his cousin patiently explaining the amendment to one of the labour laws he was working on that would make the implementation of new starships in Kuat Drive Yards go smoother.

It wasn't as though Terje hadn't _tried_ to be more like Elrik. He had spent much of his preteen years idolizing his older-by-a-year cousin. But where Elrik had the gift saying what he wanted to say in way that sounded like what people wanted to hear, Terje was always letting his disdain for mundane matters slip though. He could never acquire the passion for whatever cause he was supposed to be involved in, while Elrik took an interest in the smallest of things.

Gradually, as his reputation as a haughty, though fabulously handsome, aristocrat had crystallized, Terje had given up on the quest to be more like Elrik. Not that the disparity between public opinion on them didn't make him bitter, but he comforted himself with the consolation of being a truly superior starfighter pilot.

Not as thought _that_ did him much good, being a prince and unlikely to be able to fight on the front lines of any war, but it did soothe his bruised ego.

He got up, abruptly. He saw his father shoot him a warning look, but the dinner was as the point where people were mingling and talking in little groups, taking dainty bites of dessert and sipping from elegant porcelain café cups, and Terje was riled enough not to mind overly much whether his father approved of his actions or not.

He stalked away from the room, brushing through the doors in agitation and nearly colliding with a server, who backed hastily out of his way.

The sound of his angry foot-steps echoed through the opulent marble halls and he reached the wide double-doors of the family's main entrance feeling slightly more vindicated.

He let the doors fall back in place with a resounding crash and crossed his arms over his chest as he looked out to the expansive grounds surrounding the palace.

"Why, Terje, what brings you out here?"

He turned at the voice and saw his father's youngest brother, Vadriek, standing close by, a short, thin stick with a slight glow at one end stuck between his lips. Vadriek was similar in build to Terje, but his looks were mostly after his mother's side, with dark hair growing thick and almost into his deep black eyes, and skin that never seemed to take much of a tan. He was always courteous to Terje, and not in an overly friendly way, which Terje liked for its sincerity.

"Good evening, Uncle," Terje said with a respectful nod, "Just escaping the viper pit for a little while."

His uncle gave a thin but bemused laugh. "Ah, yes." He pointed to a long black speeder that was approaching up the drive, "I was just leaving. Can I offer you a ride anywhere?"

Terje had not really planned to go anywhere, but suddenly the idea seemed brilliant.

He glanced at his uncle. "If it's not any trouble…"

"Certainly not," said Vadriek, and ushered him into the back of the speeder as the vehicle came to a halt and the driver got out and opened the doors for them, "I'm just on my way downtown."

His uncle paused to crush the stick under his shoe, then slid in next to Terje.

"Finishing some work, Uncle?" Terje asked politely, knowing Vadriek was the head of the most successful bank the in Kuat system, "I would express my sympathies, but I lost them back among the second round of canapés."

His Uncle smirked. "Ah yes, just getting some things done at the office. It's noon on Coruscant now, you understand."

Terje inclined his head and made no more inquiries into his Uncle's work. Such questions could be seen as intrusive when exchanged between members of the nobility. It was never good to pry too deeply into another family member's business.

That was, it was never good to pry _openly_.

Instead, Terje and his Uncle discussed the standing of various _sopoz_ teams (a popular aristocratic sport on Kuat) and the finer points of one of the new KDY gunship models.

"Shall I let you off at one of the clubs?" his uncle asked as they entered the central core of Kuat City.

Terje was glad his reputation provided a useful excuse at this point, because as the speeder had progressed, a better destination had emerged in his mind.

"Just on the corner of Queen Rihjir Boulevard," Terje answered with an easy smile. The full power of that smile was often turned on unsuspecting females, but it had a certain amount of clout if applied properly with grown-ups as well.

"Don't have too much fun," his uncle said conspiratorially, as he opened the door to let Terje out.

"Thanks for the lift," Terje said with a wave, and turned to watch the speeder depart down the dark avenue. The corporate buildings mingled with trendier nightspots in this part of Kuat City, but the effect was that while some streets were lit with dazzling lights, others were quiet, reminiscent of a ghost town, when the work day was over.

_Funny,_ Terje thought as the speeder zoomed away, _I don't remember him ever smoking before…_

"Hands up, kid," said a gruff voice behind him suddenly, "Just do what I say and I won't have to use this blaster on you."

X

* * *

X

"Oh look, a tree!"

"Instead of sarcasm, you could try saying something constructive once in a while. I am trying to help you, you know."

"But this way at least I get the satisfaction of accomplishing something," Rachel said with an optimistic note.

"And what is that?"

"Annoying you."

Aimee sighed. Her older sister didn't like things not being done her way. When things weren't done in a Rachel Taren approved fashion, there was much crying and gnashing of teeth.

The frustrating part was, Rachel knew it was the better idea. Better to learn by doing, especially if they were really going to become Jedi. They were in the dark as far as general knowledge went, and really, what made more sense to two girls who had very little experience the area of Jedi History? They wouldn't know where to begin to look.

Aimee stopped abruptly. She had been following Rachel, but she was getting fed up with her passive role. Being the younger one should not necessitate such submission.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Aimee demanded.

"It was your big idea, shouldn't _you_ know?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hoping her sister was just being rhetorical, Aimee shook her head.

Rachel sighed. "Okay, yes, I do. But you shouldn't depend on that next time. Remember that the whole motto here is independent learning. Or something. Personally, I got a bit confused between that and the whole backwards, inhospitable, and not to mention, crazy, treatment. Independence, right."

Aimee looked around dubiously. "Can you really tell we're in the right place? How do you know?"

"Easy," Rachel said, halting and turning to face her, "the stones."

It was Aimee's turn to raise an eyebrow. The expression was engrained in Taren sister genetics. "The stones?"

Her older sister ignored the 'Been into the death sticks again, have we?' look and stepped over to a rock.

"They each have distinctive markings, sort of ancient carvings, if you will. And when I touch this, I will receive a brief glimpse of the object's memories. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the entertainment value of them, but it's worth a shot."

Rachel closed her eyes and brushed her finger tips lightly across the deronite surface. She shuddered involuntarily, and Aimee reached out to her with concern.

As she stepped forward, her sister's eyes opened serenely.

"It went like this: Tree, tree, tree, bigger tree, flower, tree, tree, tree, giant explosion, tree, tree, tree…"

"So… This would be the rainforest. Home of many trees," Aimee replied sardonically. That attitude must be wearing off on her. Force, she needed to make friends, if only so that she would not become pessimism incarnate.

"That stone looks different," Aimee said, pointing to a dark brown stone with worn linear carvings engraved across the surface. "I don't think the others have those kind of funny marks on them."

Rachel scrutinized the stone for a moment. "I think you're right."

Both girls were suddenly distracted by a rustling in the foliage behind them.

"What was that?" Aimee asked nervously. She wished fervently to be back on Commenor, where urbanization had eliminated any possibility of vicious wildlife attack.

Rachel swallowed, her eyes darting back and forth. "I don't know, but we should get ready to run _very_ quickly."

Aimee was about to agree, and turned to look back the way the came, but their pursuer chose that moment to reveal itself.

It was a huge, hulking beast, at least twice their size, with reptilian skin and teeth as big as Aimee's whole hand.

She gulped, and then scowled as Rachel stepped in front of her, brandishing a stick.

"It can only chase one of us at time," her older sister whispered, not taking her eyes of the monster, "I'll distract it, you run, got it?"

"I don't think so," Aimee snapped, feeling insulted on top of all the fear, "I'm not leaving you here."

The monster let loose a bone-shaking roar that Aimee was sure could be heard all the way to the next solar system.

"No way am I going back to that temple without the one sane person I know here," Aimee declared, to reinforce her refusal.

Rachel glanced at her briefly, and Aimee saw the rarely expressed sentiment of gratitude in her eyes. She stretched out her arm to squeeze her sister's hand and prepared to meet her fate.

Aimee closed her eyes and thought for a long moment. But the more she tried to empty her mind, the more panicked she became. Nothing was occurring to her. Hands balling into tight fists, she tried squeezing her eyes more firmly shut.

"That would definitely help!" Aimee heard Rachel snap at her, "Close your eyes, sure, that's going to make it just disappear… for_kriff's sake, Aimee, you'll just be eaten faster!_"

Aimee smiled.

As Rachel was still hollering beside her, and as the beast approached, Aimee felt her way through the waves of the creature's mind. And she realized that all she was feeling herself in the large reptile's brain was… _fear. _

"Rachel," she tugged on her sister's arm, "Rachel, stop yelling, the thing's just as scared as you are—"

_"GO AWAY!" _screamed Rachel, now resorting to chucking rocks at it. "Blast it, you stupid animal—"

"Rachel, don't…" As Aimee said it, she was beginning to realize. Upon feeling around some more, she became more and more attuned to the Force, and her arms hung limply at her sides as her brow furrowed.

The roaring beast suddenly stopped in the girls' path, only metres away.

"Wait! What… what did you do?" said Rachel, awestruck.

"Me? Oh. Nothing," Aimee shrugged.

The animal slowly trudged up to the two sisters. As it lumbered along, small pebbles on the path shook and bounced.

"What's it doing now?" whispered Rachel. Aimee was dumbfounded, unable to take her eyes off the still-dancing pebbles in the dust, and then, off the sheer enormity of the creature.

The creature was closer still, Aimee was almost certain it would step on her toes. In a great rattling breath, the creature's mouth opened wide. A cloud of stinking breath hit Aimee full in the face.

"The end. This is truly the end—" Rachel began.

The creature gave a great groan and began licking her face.

"Of your dignity. Oh, it most certainly is," Aimee doubled over giggling, unable to keep any semblance of straight face, or even straight body.

_"TO THE RESCUE!!" _screeched a voice, and a brown blur came barreling out of a grove of trees. A moment later, it could be seen that the brown blur was indeed Jex Midanyl, armed with a wooden staff.

The creature, alarmed by this sudden noise, stopped licking Rachel's face and stamped its foot angrily. Aimee grabbed Rachel's arm and they backed up a step as the creature began roaring again, throwing its head back and forth and stomping impatiently.

"Uh-oh," Rachel intoned quietly.

"The truth is, I didn't grow up on Corellia, I grew up on a planet called Honoghr. Don't feel bad, no one else knows where it is either," Jex explained, brushing his long brown bangs out of his eyes with a nonchalant flair.

"Anyway," he continued, "I grew up in a forest, and there were a lot of things there that forced me to get strong fairly quickly."

"You mean, the monsters?" Aimee asked, wide-eyed.

"No, I mean, my four older brothers," Jex answered, then paused, "Though I suppose the terms could be synonymous…"

Rachel whistled, "Four… That's a large family."

"They dealt with me pretty firmly," Jex said, "Nothing says growing up like being tied up in a sleeping sack and hung in a tree overnight in the jungle."

Rachel looked thoughtful.

"Aren't your brothers here, then?" Aimee questioned curiously, her eyes wandering over the occupants currently sharing the cafeteria with them. Not many students were around at this time of day, most involved in training, mediation or their studies.

The three of them had grabbed a table near the back, beside the windows overlooking the main palisade of the temple. It had never occurred to Aimee that Jex could have brothers and sisters here as well, but now she looked around the room, looking for some resemblance.

"They're off training, scattered across the galaxy," he replied, sounding like he wasn't trying to be wistful, "The fourth oldest, Dirmar, was apprenticed last year, to the same master I'd been training under."

"So what happens now?" Rachel asked, sounding as though she was growing more skeptical about Jedi training by the moment, "Who do you train with?"

"Whoever isn't busy," he said casually, "Sometimes Master Horn, sometimes Master Solusar, and when I'm lucky Master Durron." His mouth curved into a wicked smile at the last name's mention.

"You certainly are handy with that dagger-thing," Rachel noted with grudging admiration, "where did you learn to use it?"

The lines of Jexxen's mouth pressed firmly together, as though reluctant to answer.

"My mother taught me," he answered, and then with a slightly softer tone, "It's funny. She used to tell me how her closest friend saved her life in the jungle from a creature sort of like the one I just chased off. It was much more lethal, I'm sure, knowing Honoghr, but it's still ironic."

"Supposedly, irony is just fate having a good laugh at your expense," Rachel growled, then added firmly "Not that I believe in fate."

Aimee looked from her sister to her new friend. She smiled at Jex. "You'll have to forgive her. She's a natural born pessimist." She hesitated for a moment, "Jex, you wouldn't want to perhaps show _me_ how to use that thing? Or something like it? Rachel and I are kind of lost around here."

Jex pursed his lips together, and Aimee thought for a dreadful moment that he was going to say no. He wasn't giving off an encouraging feeling, as far as her newfound perceptions told her.

She dropped her eyes hurriedly from their study of his face. She had felt like they were becoming friends, but maybe she'd been mistaken. Jex, for some odd reason, gave off a reclusive air, like one accustomed to being alone.

"I suppose we could start small," he said, his face pensive and still failing to meet her eyes, "I could show you some basics, and when your master gets here, I'm sure she'll build on it."

Aimee grinned widely and he turned as though he had sensed it, meeting her with a broad smile of his own. He looked much different when he smiled; younger somehow.

The trio stood and Aimee noted that Jex gripped the light wooden staff he carried close to his side unusually tightly. As they meandered through the cavernous Temple, Rachel fell back a step or two behind Aimee, leaving her to talk to her new friend.

Aimee remembered with a soft smile that Rachel wasn't always good at making new friends. Aimee had never had a shortage and wasn't too sure about the reason why, but she was grateful that meeting friends came easily. She spent less time worrying about what people thought of her and more time seeking to understand them.

It was this part of her nature that allowed her to see how the other students reacted to Jex as he entered the training room. She was distracted by how large it was, with high echoing ceilings and a vast open space interspersed with mats, weapon racks, climbing apparatuses, and training droids. Light spiraled down in wide columns of warm afternoon sunshine, giving the appearance of giant spotlights throughout the room. Within the bright boundaries formed by the natural light, students were sparring with wooden practice swords, or pouring their sweat into unarmed combat techniques. In the shadows about the edges, other students watched and commented, occasionally shouting advice.

Aimee saw that other Jedi trainees gave Jex a wide berth as he made his way to a practice mat and handed Aimee a wooden staff. She thought she saw their eyes travel over her and Rachel as well, wondering about the newcomers, and Aimee was puzzled by the nervous shifts their eyes seemed to make.

It didn't take Aimee long to see what made her fellow students anxious or why Jex was ever so slightly ostracized in the training room. Even though Jex was patient and took great care to show her each fighting stance, he couldn't hide the sheer deadliness he had obviously been trained to fight with.

He had just finished showing her a standard starting position, and Aimee's weight was lightly balanced, her feet a shoulder-width apart, with her fists held comfortably in front of her chest. He had demonstrated the short kick to the chest that he was going to attack with, and how she was to block it. She wasn't a complete stranger to fighting, she had self-defense courses from school to fall back on, and she was a good athlete, but nothing prepared her for Jex's actual attack.

One moment, she was standing in her ready position. The next, she was lying flat on her back, getting a soon-to-be familiar look at the Jedi Temple's ceiling.

She moaned, and tried to push herself back up, but Jex's hand was there, and he was frantically apologizing.

"Oh, man, oh, Aimee, I'm so sorry," he stumbled, "I was trying to slow things down, but it's so hard, and I – are you hurt? You aren't hurt are you? You're okay?"

She took his hand, and he pulled her gently to her feet, grasping her under the elbow with his other hand.

"How?" she was able to sputter, slightly hoarse from the wind being knocked out of her.

"My mother. Some of her closest friends. My grandfather. They taught her sons well, but it's overkill sometimes. Are you okay?"

Aimee nodded.

"You're sure?" Jex asked, his brown eyes wide and timid, "You want some water? Some ice? Anything?"

"Jex," she said, reassuring him with a touch of her hand on his, "I'm okay. Really, I was more surprised than anything."

She rubbed her tailbone and managed to suppress a wince. She heard a loud "Ahem" from the corner of the practice mat and both she and Jex turned to see Rachel sitting cross-legged, her finger crooked in a beckoning motion towards Jex.

He wandered over to her, his customary swagger toned down considerably. He bent down to the level of Rachel's mouth. Aimee saw her sister's mouth moving, though her face remained a mask of calm, and Jex stood up abruptly, then walked back over to Aimee. His face was utterly devoid of colour.

Aimee tilted her head at him in question.

"Uh," Jex coughed, "She said I should learn how to pull my punches if I didn't want poisonous insects to wake up to in the night and a bunch of other stuff that sounded really painful and also that I need to show her this after too, or else she'll use my head to play smashball."

Raising an eyebrow in her sister's direction briefly, Aimee gave a calming smile to Jex. "Don't worry, she's not really half as violent as she seems."

Jex did not look reassured. "If she's a quarter as violent as she seems, then I don't want to be in the same galactic quadrant as her…"

Aimee laughed. "Well, she may have the fury, but she doesn't have the skill yet, so you'd better show me that move again. That way, we'll be prepared when she comes for us."

Grinning a bit, Jex nodded, the movement shaking his overly long brown hair once again into his face, hiding his eyes. Aimee fought a strong inclination to brush it away, but to her surprise and disappointment he reached up to perform the action just as her thought was conceived.

"Again then?" he asked, looking less nervous.

"Again," Aimee affirmed, stepping back into position.

In the corner of her mind, as she braced herself for Jex's attack, she couldn't help but think, _Well, at least our master can't be this tough._

Could she?

X

* * *

X

"I'm warning you again, just turn around," the gruff voice said impatiently, "If you want to keep all your organs inside where they belong."

Terje wrinkled his nose at the tasteless threat. Really, someone needed to teach muggers better manners these days. He raised his arms to his head and turned around slowly.

"I don't have any money on me, you know," Terje said haughtily. And even if he had, this low-life wouldn't have seen it.

"Yeah, right. Now hold still while I search you or you'll be incinerated."

Terje mentally congratulated his attacker on the use of a word larger than two-syllables. He tensed as the man came closer, knowing he would probably only get one chance.

Just as the man was reaching forward, in a position that was defensive but flawed in stability, Terje snapped his left leg up, straight into the attacker's hand.

He ducked at the same time, wincing as he heard the sound of a blaster bolt discharging, but was relieved to see the weapon go flying. Terje used his downward momentum to crouch, dodging the attacker's first punch, and then swept his right leg in a low circle, sweeping the man's legs out from under him.

Terje sprang up and reached for the tiny hold-out blaster he always concealed in his boot. He flipped the setting to stun and took aim at the man's head.

_Zeutis and the gods_, he considered snidely as he surveyed the scene, _I hardly broke a sweat. Muggers these days._ He touched the silken material of his shirt gingerly, wondering if his servants would note it was ruined.

Five standard minutes later, Terje had propped the unconscious body against a wall, thrown the blaster in the nearest dumpster and had left a scrap of a flimsy paper in his assailant's hand that read "Next time, say 'Your majesty.'"

He was wary as he made his way to a large, corrugated durasteel door down an alleyway more treacherous and dank than the one where he had left his ill-fated attacker. The smell always got to him, but royalty didn't get a lot of time to become accustomed to the stink of garbage, urination, and stagnant water.

The door was very old. None of the locals believed it opened anymore, but Terje had been forced through it once, though going in the opposite direction, and further investigation had uncovered the secret to its entrance.

Smiling, Terje slipped a chain from underneath his shirt, made of a nearly unbreakable, glittering metal, mined from a long extinct planet. The key was not large, but the teeth seemed intricate, and he held his breath as he inserted it into a small hole on the left of the door that was ridged with overlapping steel plates in the common pattern of a sun symbol.

Terje was exceedingly haughty, but that didn't make him stupid.

The Palace library had volumes from every corner of the galaxy, in thousands of alien alphabets and on every subject matter imaginable. Unlike many libraries though, it was cold and forbidding, allowing Terje the privacy to find the information he needed about the symbol.

It turned out that the monarchy of Kuat had gone back not only centuries, but millennia, and the symbol on the twisted door was a relic of a time long past, a sign of the ancient ruling family. It seemed that Kuat City, even the dazzling, commercial district, had remnants of the buildings surviving thousands of years. The newer buildings were like so much decoration on foundations traveling deep into the planet's crust.

Terje turned the key and he heard a series of whirring noises, clicks, and something akin to ratchet working. He knew the door was prehistoric, and he often wondered if the key served to wind the lock, like some kind of ancient mechanical device, or if there was something droid operated.

The clicking stopped and the door creaked open with what sounded like indignant protest. Terje removed his key and had to slip quickly into the entry as the door squawked and began to close.

The tunnel inside was completely dark, and Terje had to feel his way along blindly. The floor was cunningly designed to slope downward at an angle that made it nearly impossible to detect how far underground you had proceeded, but Terje knew by this time that the depth of the tunnel exit was far below what was expected.

He walked for was seemed like hours but in reality was only a few minutes, through the blackness and finally reached a tiny room. Terje felt around and then a soft green light from the glowrod in his hand illuminated the room. Terje had not had the luxury of this the first time, but on later trips, had added the long lasting glow stick to help him see. Everything looked eerie now, cast in the strange green glow and Terje scowled at his surroundings.

"Would it have killed them to have brightened the place up a bit?" he muttered to himself, wishing they had been primitive enough to have fire torches.

He searched the far wall, running his fingers into the crevices of the ancient stonewall and seeking some peculiar notches in the base of one stone. When he found it, he grabbed his key again and fitted it into the notches, then yanked hard upwards on the stone.

The wall began to shift, a device in the ceiling above making identical whirring and clicking noises to the first entrance, and Terje grabbed his key and once more dashed through the opening.

It made sense that it was harder to get in than out, Terje supposed. His present location, the tunnels beneath the Kuati Starship Museum, had once been an ancient palace, the ruling place of the most esteemed and powerful Kuat of Kuat.

Terje smirked at the thought, and then wondered why human beings made expressions when there was no one around to see them. He ran on through the tunnels, which were dully illuminated for the sake of the maintenance staff, who occasionally had to brave the underground maze. Terje found a control box for the security cameras for the second floor of the museum and flicked the switch off, feeling superior in his presence here remaining a secret.

Terje knew his way around, and in no time he had reached the upper levels, then took a lift to the second floor of the museum. He stepped out into a huge, echoing space, large enough to drive a Victory-class Star Destroyer into. Terje guessed the chamber must once have been a throne room. There were starfighters of all description mounted on pedestals around the room, cordoned off with red velette material.

During the day, light flooded into the hall through the rosy transparisteel windows lining the top of the hall, looking as majestic and ethereal as a painting Terje had seen once that was simply called "Theed Palace". Whoever had built that palace, now, those people had taste.

Terje knew a great deal about taste, in his opinion. Possibly, it came from his princely upbringing, but where it showed its greatest scrutiny was in that of starfighter models.

He smiled and slipped over the cordon of the last starfighter display in the hall. It was a Nubian 330, and Terje considered it one of the most beautiful sights so far in his short life. The lines were sleek and streamlined, the shape was flawless, and the engine could give any present-day starfighter a run for its money.

He climbed up the ladder on the side and jumped into the open cockpit, letting out a contented sigh and stretching out in the seat, running his hands across the control panels briefly. He inhaled the scent of polished metal, engine fuel and ancient must. He knew that as far as retreats went, his was difficult to get to and almost more trouble than it was worth, but whenever he sat in this cockpit, he felt that at least he didn't need to act like a prince.

Terje would have nearly fallen asleep in that position if it hadn't been for the emergence of two figures at the end of the hall, from a different corridor than Terje had entered through.

The sound of their voices startled Terje from his reverie, and he slid further down in the seat to stay hidden from view.

"The money should be deposited in your account the day after tomorrow," a female voice was saying, "And before you ask, I am _not_ at liberty to say where it's from."

The next voice was heavily accented and came out sounding sharp and hissed. "This had better not be tainted money. Our organization would hate to be traced."

"It's from a _very_ reliable source," said the female voice again, and Terje began to suspect he'd heard that voice before.

"You can tell your partner his task force won't be ready for nearly a month," The being paused, and Terje slid further down in his seat as he heard their footsteps approaching his side of the hall. "Are there holocams here? Can we speak freely?"

_Kriff_, Terje cursed inwardly. He had disabled them when he came in. Now he wouldn't be able to check the identity of his late-night company.

"I have an arrangement with the guard here, of course," the female voice retorted, "The cameras will pick up our image, but he will erase them from the records."

_Karking kriffing son of blasted Sith!_ It wouldn't take the guard long to notice he'd shut them down.

"To mount a full-scale assault on the palace will take time to prepare, and we won't risk going in under armed."

"One month will suffice," came the haughty female voice.

Terje debated briefly whether he could be hallucinating this entire scene.

"And what about the heir? We haven't discussed the details in dealing with him."

"My partner informs me he is out for the evening. He will be dealt with on his return to the palace tonight," the voice sounded amused, "And what a blessing that will be for all of us."

Terje had just enough time to feel insulted at the thought of _anyone_ not enjoying his company before the threat in her words sank in. There was the sound of rushed footsteps and then suddenly his evening got a lot worse.

"Madame! The cameras!" a harassed voice panted, "There's an intruder in the building!"

"What!" the other voice hissed, "You didn't see them come in!?"

"There's no possible way! All the exits and entrances are sealed except for the one you came in. And I've been watching those levels very closely!"

There was a soft curse, upon which Terje realized why the female voice was familiar and who it belonged to. Only one person he knew swore with such lady-like elegance mixed with a vile politician's tongue.

"You had best leave the building immediately, Madam, so that I can alert the other guards and conduct a thorough sweep."

There was a swift agreement to this plan, as the voices were carried away in a different direction. He cautiously peered over the edge of the starfighter's open cockpit and did a quick scan of the room. The coast was clear.

With the litheness of one is used to outrunning political assassins, Terje leapt from his hiding place and ran full speed from the room. In a blur, he reached the lower levels again and among the myriad of grotesque, twisted statues sculpted into the walls, he came to the one he was looking for. He pricked his finger on the tooth of a snarling beast's caricature and gave a sigh of relief as the portal opened. He later remembered stumbling through the dark, an insult to his princely grace, and reaching the exit feeling frenzied.

"To Kuat Palace, immediately," Terje ordered the public speeder-driver that stopped to pick him up once he reached a major street. "Fifty standards if you can get there fast."

Money appeared to be all the incentive needed, because Terje was swiftly back home, standing before the towering gates of the main entrance to the palace. There was a guard on duty to who Terje snapped brief instructions to pay the driver and which account to take it out of, for he carried no money and didn't feel like parting with any of his jewellery.

Another guard opened the gate for him and Terje melted through it and the earliest possible moment. He didn't even stop to relish the view of the palace, which lay spread out in the lush grounds, glittering and luminescent, with the peaceful silence of the evening upon it.

He made directly for his father's quarters, the servants giving him twice the space they usually did, but when he reached the inner rooms he was stopped by his father's valet.

"I need to speak with the Kuat this moment," Terje stressed, drawing himself up to his full height and enunciating every syllable as he spoke.

"I am gravely sorry, Your Highness, but he gave instructions that no one was to interrupt him. Not even you, Your Highness."

Terje's fist clenched, but he reminded himself that displays of anger should be beneath royalty.

"It is an _exceedingly_ urgent matter," Terje said, "I am certain he will understand."

"My apologies, Your Majesty, but the directions were explicit. No admittance to anyone."

"But-" a thought suddenly occurred to Terje, "He's not with Shesh, is he?"

The steward looked puzzled for a moment, "No, your Highness, not Mistress Shesh. He's talking to the M-"

"No matter," Terje replied, waving away the servant's explanation, "As long as it's not Shesh. Just tell him to send for me when he's finished."

Terje spun on his heel and strode from the room, his mind churning. So Shesh didn't have an alibi; that was good. It might make what his father had to hear easier.

He knew the way to his own rooms without paying attention, so he was looking down as he reached the threshold to his chambers, still mulling the plot he had heard that evening over in his head.

_But what about dealing with me? _Terje thought, _What are they planning to do to me tonight?_

He stopped moving, his hand turning the doorknob of his foremost apartment. He had pushed the door open a matter of centimetres. He froze and pricked his ears. Was that a clicking noise?  
"Oh,_kriff_," he breathed and let go of the door. He began to sprint away from the door, but the world around him seemed to drag him down and everything, including himself, seemed to be moving slowly.

He couldn't hear anything, then suddenly his ears were filled with a noise ten times as loud as a starfighter engine revving up. There was no sensation, but in an instant, he could feel the heat of fiery clouds at his back. Why couldn't he move faster? He felt like he was frozen, but in reality he was moving faster than he'd ever moved in his life.

He had a millisecond to consider that this life might not be destined to continue much longer, then the shockwave of the explosion hit him full on.

The last thing he saw was the line of ornate wooden columns as his body was flung toward them.

X

* * *

X

"This part is interesting," Rachel noted quietly, pointing at a spot on the pages open before her. The morning sunlight drifted through the open window on the warm breeze, bringing the scent of tropical flowers with it. The two girls sitting up casually on Rachel's bed, leaning against the stone wall beside the window, made a peaceful image. They sat side by side, with _The Rise and the Fall of the Jedi_ spread across their laps. Rachel's long dark hair was tied back off her face, but Aimee restlessly twisted a loose lock around her finger, biting her lip as she gazed over the words in front of her.

It would have been quite serene at first glance, but pausing longer, an observer would have witnessed a healthy amount of elbow jostling and tugging back and forth of the book for a better view.

"Quinlan Vos?" Aimee questioned, "They talk about him a lot in this period. He doesn't exactly seem like a poster boy for the light side, does he?"

"No," Rachel agreed, "But it's the abilities they talk about. Psychometric powers, where the object shares its memories and the memories it has shared with previous people, sounds kind of like the Temple and what it was doing when I first touched it."

"But you didn't see the memories of other people," Aimee pointed out.

"Maybe because I haven't been trying to," Rachel mused, "I haven't been looking for anything, the memories just force themselves into my head." She gestured with her hands, her face frustrated. "Whether I want them to or not."

"Maybe the Force is trying to tell you something," Aimee suggested.

Rachel gave her a withering look. She did not entertain thoughts like that and wouldn't unless someone gave her good reason to.

"What!" her younger sister protested, looking insulted. "You never know! Maybe the Force has to work a bit harder to get things through to you, considering you're such a huge, obstinate-"

Rachel slammed the book closed with unnecessary force and then said in a calm, level voice, "I think I'd like to do some training." Aimee was right. She hadn't made any friends thus far, where Aimee had a diverse group of companions. Aimee only knew how to get from the mess hall to her dorm and the dorm to the training hall, where Rachel intimately knew the layout of the Temple, and particularly the library, to the least traversed corners. Aimee was nervous, but laughed easily. Rachel was being anti-social and disagreeable and the worst part was that she knew it. But she didn't know how to be otherwise.

"Okay," Aimee agreed, looking at her sister speculatively in that way Rachel hated. Why did she have to understand her so well? "Maybe Jex will be around."

Rachel gave an unwilling smile. "That would be good."

The girls scrambled to find the clothing that had been diverted into use as training outfits, loose grey pants and tight sleeveless shirts. Rachel finished changing first and watched in amusement as Aimee checked her reflection in the mirror, trying to straighten the lock of hair she'd been fussing with earlier. Oh, watching your teenage sister pretend not to have a crush was difficult work. If she caught on to your amusement, they would immediately try harder to hide it.

Rachel slung a towel over her shoulder and struggled to keep from smirking as she and her sister made their way through the dormitories and down the twisting corridors to the massive training area.

Rachel immediately made a beeline for the weapons rack. While Aimee was hailed by some friends, a Twi'lek and a Zabrak, and joked with them for a few minutes, Rachel found her favourite wooden training sword and held it up in a victorious manner. Gripping the worn handle with affection, she assumed a ready stance and took a few swings, making sure no one else had been using it and screwing up the balance.

Satisfied, she walked over to the nearest open training mat and stretched, feeling much happier than she had been earlier. Aimee finished goofing off, waved to her friends and stopped at the weapons rack before making her way over to Rachel.

"You'll never guess what happened in the mess hall after we left this morning," Aimee said, stretching absently. "Raynur Thul and Lusa had this incredibly personal fight in front of everyone about how he never pays attention to anything right in front of his face, by which she specifically meant her, I suspect."

Rachel finished preparing her muscles and spread her feet apart, poising herself for the first barrage.

"Of course, Raynar likes her, he just doesn't know it yet, because he's so busy playing the role of galactic merchant heir that he won't act like a normal human being…"

Rachel began circling her sister, her feet making steady crossovers as she moved.

"And then Jacen Solo had to – are you even listening to me?" Aimee asked plaintively.

"You lost me at 'Raynar Thul and Lusa'," Rachel said, not breaking step, "Those two may like each other, but anyone can see that nothing short of an extragalactic war is going to make Raynar notice someone besides himself."

"Huh," Aimee said as she lapsed into her parallel ready stance and began circling Rachel in a copy cat motion.

Rachel grinned. This was always Aimee's first move.

She started to circle the other direction, but before Aimee could adjust, she lunged forward with a downward cut.

Aimee recovered quickly, stepping back and bracing her sword above her head for the parry. Rachel was pleased to see her starting to compensate for the extra height Rachel had to her advantage.

"That's sort of unfair to Raynar, don't you think?" Aimee said through gritted teeth, pushing back against Rachel's blow.

"I suppose he could grow out of it," Rachel amended, disengaging her wooden blade and making another strike towards Aimee's exposed right side.

The battle continued in silence for a little while, the only sounds the hollow knock of wood against wood as the sisters matched each other move for move. Rachel felt the sweat begin to drip down her neck, soaking the back of her shirt, but relished in each successive stroke of her sword and each time her body responded quickly to parry an attack from Aimee.

The first match ended as Rachel beat Aimee's blade to the side, feinted an attack to her shoulder, but twisted her hands at the last second to make the hit land on Aimee's ribs. She ducked the parry that Aimee had carried through to her head and rolled away out of range of retaliation.

"Ugh," Aimee commented, panting slightly, the point her sword dropping and hand going to her hip as she caught her breath.

Rachel sprung up from the mat, feeling pleased with herself.

"If your sister didn't leave a significant portion of her left flank open with that guard position, you never would have managed that hit."

The voice was cool and unimpressed and came from Rachel's right side.

She whirled around, wondering who could possibly be as rude as she was and get away with it. Her gaze met the icy green eyes of the tall, imposing woman, standing before her dressed in red reptilian-looking armour, her arms crossed over her chest, with a blaster rifle strapped across her back and not one, but two lightsabers strapped to a belt across her waist. The woman's legs were well muscled and Rachel suspected that one might easily be as thick as her two, awkwardly skinny as she was. Her hair was streaked brown, red and blonde and collected in braids with an assortment of strange ornaments dangling from them – skulls, jewels, feathers and colourful beads.

Recognizing the woman to be her fabled master, Rachel bowed from the waist.

"Master T'ja."

The wooden sword in Aimee hand was abruptly ripped from her grasp and the Jedi Master looked at it speculatively. "I was on my way to the dorms to find you, under the directions of Master Solusar, when I saw two girls matching the description I was given on their way to the training room."

The woman twisted the sword speculatively this way and that in her hand, then grimaced at it with displeasure. "You can imagine how pleased I was to find two such enterprising young ladies assigned to be my apprentices. My first apprentices, ready to be shaped into great Jedi, unsurpassed by their fellows."

Rachel briefly looked at Aimee, careful not to move her head and saw Aimee glance back at her. The rising uncertainty she felt was mirrored in her sister's eyes.

The woman gave them a savage smile.

"So perhaps you can understand my displeasure when I observed you sparring. I had hoped for seasoned fighters, but I find two unschooled adolescents instead. And I had hoped to find you as a team, sisters that had learned to work together to be stronger. Instead of that, I find you both restrained by childish rivalries."

Rachel was just on the point of opening her mouth to say something in their defence, feeling as though this woman was taking her judgements a little too far, when the Master sprung at her, brandishing Aimee's practice sword with formidable force. Rachel was caught off guard, but tried to back up, her frantic parrying barely able to keep up.

With fast, contained attacks, the woman quickly overwhelmed her, and Rachel failed to block one strike, then another. The blows fell across her sides, knocking the wind out of her and sending pain blasting through her nerves.

Her attacker stopped, coming to rest looking like her explosion of activity hadn't affected her at all. She watched Rachel emotionlessly while Rachel tried to regain normal breathing and shoved aside the pain in her ribs to the back of her mind.

Their Master smiled again, more bemused than condescending this time. "Well," Master T'ja said, "At least you have a decent pain tolerance. I can work with that."

Her braid ornaments made a tinkling sound as Malpadia T'ja turned and beckoned the two girls to follow.

Rachel and her sister stared at each other, not daring to speak, and gazed after their new master with a combination of wonderment and fear.

X

* * *

X

Terje was first aware of the dull pain permeating his body. He felt he was drifting in a warm, dark place, but as he came closer to consciousness, he began to feel the rays of afternoon sunlight falling on his bed and the voices of two people speaking nearby.

He stirred, feeling the pain of his numerous injuries, but he did not open his eyes.

"Along with the cuts caused by shrapnel and the fracture to his tibia, he seemed to have a considerable concussion. He woke up yesterday, but he wasn't coherent. I don't think there is any permanent damage to his mental facilities, but we can't be sure until he wakes up."

"When do you expect him to regain consciousness?" Terje recognized his father's voice through the haze of painkillers and he heard the well-disguised tension behind his measured words. One of his earliest memories was watching his father talk to doctors and the smell of sanitized hospital rooms. He could picture the way his father's lips would tighten and the way he nodded, not because he understood, but because he wished for an end of the medical explanations. There had always been a different one as far as his mother was concerned.

He struggled to open his eyes. His father shouldn't have to worry about him, not with everything he already had to worry about. He had to concentrate on Mother getting better, not him.

Terje's eyes fluttered open and he saw his father standing close to the hospital bed, his hands clasped tightly and neatly behind his back. The doctor was speaking to him low tones, grasping a flimsiboard as though it were a shield to be held against the wrath of the Kuat.

"Father…" he murmured, his tongue feeling thick and heavy in his mouth.

At the sound of his voice, the two men turn immediately to the bed.

"I'm alright, Father," Terje stumbled, trying to make his dry lips and mouth form the proper words, "Go to Mother. Don't worry about me."

The Kuat's face twisted in grief and he reached out to grab his son's hand. "Oh, Terje."

"Your highness?" the doctor questioned timidly.

"Terje, your mother's not here," his father answered softly.

"Your highness," the doctor interrupted, "I must ask you, my greatest apologies, but I must ask you: what is the last thing you remember?"

Terje's mind was still drifting in that warm, dark place he had found so comfortable. This world was far too bright, and his leg throbbed and his head felt awful. Now he tried to make the reels of his mind work, but they moved in slow motion. The mental movement was equally as painful as his physical injuries.

"I remember the banquet," he announced after a long silent minute. He looked at his father and understanding passed between them. Terje remembered now that his mother was ashes and that his father was possibly an eccentric fool. His eyes communicated this to Rikard.

"The last thing I remember," Terje continued, "Was listening to Elrik drone on about politics." He frowned, because something itched at the back of his mind, a sense that there was something important he was forgetting, something that seemed obscured by the grey mist in his head. Maybe it was just the pain killers talking.

He looked down at his leg disdainfully.

"And I suppose this will take a month to heal?" he sneered at it, then at the doctor.

"At least, your Majesty," the doctor acknowledged.

The Kuat was gazing at his son with a stony look now, the moment of paternal concern lost in the wide expanse of Terje's sarcasm. He met his son's eyes and looked much as he did the time he had delivered the execution speech for a treasonous relative.

"As soon as your head is healed, I'm moving you to the country estate to recover," his father informed as soon as the doctor left. "And the Jedi will arrive soon after to protect you. Now, don't try to be going anywhere on that leg."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Terje bit back waspishly, refusing to look at his father as the Kuat strode from the room.

He would keep to that, of course, even if he would give half of his inheritance not to. Terje glared angrily out the window, watching the sunlight glint off the nanglo fruit. He didn't have the choice offered to millions of the galaxies citizens in his position. Terje, it had been discovered some years, was allergic to bacta.

Just like his mother had been.


End file.
